A message to the Netizens!

While we are here sitting in relatively comfortable dwellings gossiping about college, cricket or even Bollywood, complaining about stuff we don’t have and what we deserve as a nation in the 21^st century (internet connectivity is surely gonna top that list!), while we go on with our lives there is a woman raped in some war torn African nation, a child orphaned in some Arab nation under siege by a terrorist group, a country’s heritage is being destroyed, the natural wealth of some place in India is being plundered, the basic democratic rights of people in China are being trampled. We have fixated our eyes so strongly on the brightness that our future promises to hold that we miss out on the darkness spread wide in present times.

We go on with our lives and there isn’t much that we can do as individuals to change the course of some place thousands of miles from where we are, but does that absolve all our responsibilities as a global citizen. Isn’t every murder that is happening in Africa a weight on our conscience? After all this is a global age now, a global economy now. And if you think that your life is in no way related to it think about the fuel that you use (its prices are affected by the conflict in some distant gulf country), the diamonds that you love to wear (they are soaked in blood of hundreds that are caught in the conflict), the electricity that brightens your homes (the local tribes were made to flee the area when coal mines were discovered there).

Isn’t all this a weight on your conscience. Doesn’t the indiscriminate use of resources and our consumption of the end products make us an accomplice as well? You may hide in the veil of religion and other theories to satisfy yourself, but surely you have to blame yourself as well.

So what can we do? Nothing individually, but collectively. First discuss about the problems with others. The online Indians are a 300 million strong community. Make them aware of what is happening. We might not have the fastest internet speed but even with present bandwidth we can make it an instrument of change.  India is the second largest population on earth and the largest democracy in the world but our involvement in world affairs has been minimal. We dream of having a United Nations Security Council seat as a permanent member but we have done little on a global level. We have resolved never to get involved in any country’s internal affairs as a component of our foreign policy but should that stop us from raising human right violations in other countries where our foreign policy interests are not harmed and our involvement is that of helping hand and not of meddling in someone’s internal affairs.

Secondly, make your voice heard to the policy makers. Our isolation on the global level has reduced our country to an international market, a history backyard. We never forced our leaders to take a stand. Our stand on a number of global issues is unknown, even to our own citizens. This has led to a number of important foreign policy affairs to remain elusive of public scrutiny. The only external affairs that our politicians discuss with us are the infiltrations by Pakistan and China. Apart from that a number of decisions are taken by our leaders without coming in public purview. This has to change. We can no longer afford to stay ignorant of our foreign policy. And we the citizens have to take a lead. We have to tell our politicians to spell out our foreign policies to us. Then only can we expect decisions being taken with national interests in mind and not just “international pressure”.

As our involvement in global issues increases it will mean a better standing of India on an international level, and a more vibrant democracy domestically as more and more issues are discussed and further transparency starts to trickle down from the pinnacles of governance. Thus while working towards lightening our conscience we might actually be helping our own country in more ways than we ever imagined.